Scan Your Way To Meaningful Use Compliance

By Paul Czerwinski, North America Director of Healthcare, Motorola Solutions

Meaningful Use Stage 2 compliance is the number one issue facing healthcare IT professionals in 2014 and 2015. An important requirement for certification is tracking medication from order to administration using assistive technologies. The most common assistive technology is bar code scanning.  

Bar code medication administration (BCMA) has moved from a future technology to an accepted and effective means of enhancing healthcare. It can accurately verify patient identification, medication, timing and dosage and automate the manual processes that are prone to human error. BCMA solutions can also provide relevant data to drive continuous quality improvement (CQI) and significantly reduce workflows in hospitals.

Here are three items to consider when selecting a BCMA solution.

• Check Those Certifications. Meaningful Use requires that assistive technology connect the medication administration to the patient’s electronic medical record. Each of the major electronic medical record (EMR) software vendors require that bar code scanners and associated hardware and software are tested and certified to work with their software packages. When studying bar code scanner technology vendors, part of the selection process needs to include a review of the EMR software certifications. The last thing an IT organization wants to undertake is testing and certification after going through a lengthy bidding and proposal process.

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